Edmund Burke and the Moral Imagination

13 APRIL 2026 · 43 MINUTES · POLITICAL THOUGHT

Jack Thomson explores Edmund Burke’s political vision and the moral imagination: the role of inherited wisdom, sentiment, prudence, and historical continuity in sustaining political order.

Episode guide

• Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France
• Tradition and prudence as responses to abstract rationalism
• Society as a living inheritance rather than a system designed from first principles
• The emotional and moral foundations of political judgment

Sources and further reading

• Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
• Edmund Burke, An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791).
• Richard Bourke, Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke (2015).
• Jesse Norman, Edmund Burke: The First Conservative (2013).

Transcript

A full transcript is in preparation. This page provides an accessible summary and episode guide in the meantime.

Continue the conversation

• Read: Rousseau: Freedom, Inequality and the Problem of Modern Society
• Discuss: Can Political Wisdom Be Inherited?
• Browse all podcast episodes